The suspect appeared to have been planning to kill Jews for several weeks, apparently motivated by the Middle East conflict, which is why he chose the location, the prosecutors said.

Authorities in Berlin have detained a teenage Syrian refugee after a man was stabbed near the city’s Holocaust Memorial late Friday – as divisive rhetoric swells over Germany’s immigration policy, ahead of a consequential national election.

The police said they had detained a suspect in the assault, which occurred among the labyrinth of concrete slabs at one of the German capital’s most sacrosanct sites.